


In Living Memory

by panaceaa



Category: South Park
Genre: Detective Kyle, F/F, Horror, M/M, need i say more?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-07-27 06:03:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16212971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panaceaa/pseuds/panaceaa
Summary: A living horror unknowingly festers in a lab atop a hill, trapped in its eternal prison for all of time. That is, until one night it's suddenly set free.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, my lovelies! I know what you may be thinking- notes at the beginning?? What is this? But look guys, I want to put a disclaimer here- you see that rating? You see the warnings? You see that word "horror"? Please, take them into consideration. I'm not going to be doing any handholding here, people will be dying and things in this are meant to put you on edge. If this isn't your cup of tea, then that's perfectly fine but I'm letting you know now.  
> Happy Halloween ;)

_Prologue: Butters_

...

The car radio is deafening.

Not in aspect of sound, but purely in its presence. The very fact that it continued to fill the tense silence between them with softly sung words and a peaceful melody. Butters watches the sights go by him with a prominent frown against his features, the nonstop fiddling of his hands the only thing betraying his nerves.

Swallowing past a sudden feeling of nausea, he attempts to breach the subject one more time. If only because their destination was quickly approaching, and with that their opportunity to turn back was dissipating into the air like dust.

“Eric, I just really don’t think-”

“Goddammit Butters!” Eric Cartman snaps, tearing his eyes from the road to shoot him a menacing glare. “Would you shut up about this already?! What did I literally tell you like five whole minutes ago?”

With a small huff, Butters turns back toward the window. “That we’re going to the lab no matter what.”

“ _And_?” He presses.

”And that if I don’t stop bugging you about how this is a bad idea then you’d go and fire me.”

“See? Now I don’t get why that’s so hard for you to understand. It’s a bunch of fucking rumors, Butters, stop being such a damn pussy about it.”

“Yes, sir,” he mutters.

“What was that?”

“ _Yes_ , sir,” he says a bit more loudly, earning a stiff nod from Cartman.

“That’s more like it.”

And although Butters gives a small sigh as he stares out the car window, he knows he really shouldn’t have expected any other result. He’d worked for Cartman for along the lines of five years, and had known him since early childhood. Had been friends with him, or at least as close as you could be to friends with someone like him. So, Butters of all people knew that the guy was convinced that all those dark stories surrounded the lab were all “bullshit” as he had frequently put it. Lies made up by Mephesto to stop anyone from coming and finding out whatever secrets he was keeping to himself in that lab. And Cartman, a businessman through and through, wanted in on it. And when Cartman wanted something he got it, no matter what.

They exchange no further words for the few minutes left of the drive, and soon enough Cartman is pulling the car up in front of the gate that led to Mephisto's property.

Cartman’s the first one out of the vehicle, and Butters is quick to follow after, stepping out of the car only to be greeted by an immediate sense of _wrongness_.

Something inexplicable. Undefinable. But enough to make him shiver despite the lack of chill in the air.

They weren’t supposed to be here.

It was a fact that kept rushing around his head no matter how hard he tried to silence it. Cartman might have told him he was just being stupid for going ahead and believing in old rumors that didn’t exist, but he couldn’t shake the feeling in his gut. The quiet foreboding and sense of unease that fills his every muscle and joint with tension.

Cartman walks up to the entry doorbell for the gate, only to step back with a startled curse.

“What?” Butters asks in alarm, taking a step towards him. “What’s wrong?”

Cartman waves him off, sending a pointed glare towards the piece of technology that had wronged him. “The fucking old-ass thing shocked me,” he explains while flexing out his hand. “With all that money he has you’d think that old man would at least make sure his fucking doorbell worked.” With another muttered curse he turns to Butters. “Go get the bolt cutters from the trunk.”

And, of course, Butters isn’t as surprised at the request as he should be. This _was_ Eric Cartman, after all. But a faint movement of the gate catches his eye, a gust of wind passing through and moving the gate just a little more than it should, making it creak against its hinges

“Wait, Eric.”

Butters steps forward and slightly pushes on the gate, the structure heavy and old yet moving away from the latch with a light screech.

“Huh, would you look at that,” Cartman says, clearly a bit surprised. “Guess he just stopped locking it.” Then with a noncommittal shrug, he steps forward and finishes with, “Whatever.”

The gate creaks open and, in the nuances between the old rusty sound and the silence of the evening, Butters swears he hears the faint sound of laughter on the wind. Not light or gleeful, but a sound that causes the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end.

“...Did ya hear that?” He asks Cartman as he follows him through the gate; although, all he gets is an odd look in return.

“Hear what?”

He was probably just bein’ stupid again, at least he knew that’s what Cartman would tell him. So, he decides it’s better to keep it to himself for now.

“Nothin’...was probably just the wind.”

Still, Butters can’t shake the prickling feeling of being watched that follows them as they proceed.

They begin making their way up the hillside towards Mephesto’s lab: a place that no one had entered or exited in years. There were of course the stories. Some saying that they could hear the sound of sobbing coming from inside if they dared to pass close enough. Some saying that the land itself was cursed, the truth of Mephesto’s genetic experiments on living creatures being maybe a bit darker than he had once convinced them to be. And there were some who said that anyone who had dared to enter the lab’s property was never seen or heard from again; likely either becoming a subject of terrible experiments or being taken by the curse itself.

But those were just stories. Nothing to worry about. Just stories.

The sky was fading with the last signs of sunset and the dark sky cast shadows behind every rock, bush, and tree that they passed. Cartman had wanted to get a full day of work done at the office before coming here, clearly not worried about visiting at night. The mid-autumn breeze is a frequent thing, and every time it greets them it scatters leaves in its wake, making a sound that’s eerily reminiscent of footsteps trailing them. Never far behind. Shadows move with the swaying of branches and give off the impression that they’re about to jump out at him any minute.

Something moves in the bushes behind him. A shadow at the edge of his vision paired with the rustling of leaves.

He whips around.

“Aw hamburgers, Eric what was that?”

“It was probably just a fucking squirrel or something,” he answers, continuing to walk and not even bothering humoring him. “Goddammit, Butters would you calm the fuck down already? You’re starting to really get on my nerves.”

Butters stares at the offending bush for a few moments, but when nothing immediately jumps out he turns back around with a small nod.

Right. Probably just a squirrel. No need to be alarmed.

Still, as they proceed the rest of the way up the path Butters sticks a little too close to Cartman’s side, and although the man rolls his eyes and huffs, he doesn’t outright tell him to get lost. Yet even with Cartman’s haughty assurance that everything was fine, Butters can’t shake the uneasy feeling that eats away at him. Especially as the lab gets closer and closer with every step that they take, the huge building towering over them like a giant imposing monster.

Butters is stuck tilting his head up at it as they reach the front porch, Cartman stepping ahead of him towards the door. Suppressing a shiver he looks away, yet before he follows after Cartman something on the ground catches his eye and he leans down to pick it up.

“Huh?” He mutters aloud, inspecting the material resting against his palm. “Police tape?”

“Aye, Butters! Would you hurry it up already?!”

“Oh, sorry Eric!” Butters says quickly, hurrying after him and dropping the piece of tape to the ground, forgotten.

Cartman gives him an annoyed look once he joins him again, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, he turns to give the front door a heavy knock, repeating the action when no one immediately responds. After the third try he glares at the door as if it had personally offended him, and turns to Butters. For a moment the blond is hopeful they can just turn around and go home now, although all hope is promptly crushed the moment Cartman says, “We’re breaking in.”

“But Eric we can’t-”

“Listen Butters, if this guy wants to be a giant asshole who not only refuses to answer or respond to any of my calls, but also has the nerve to ignore me when I come all the way to his fucking doorstep then he deserves a bit of a break in. I don’t know what he’s hiding, but I’m going to fucking find out. This asshole _owes_ me.”

And knowing that tone, all Butters can do is sigh quietly to himself as Cartman thoroughly inspects the front of the lab. There were windows, but most of them had planks of wood nailed across them, and the front door itself was heavy and imposing- not something that would be easily picked with an ordinary lockpicking kit.

Finally, Cartman’s gaze settles on a specific part of a window, and he smirks. “He has this place boarded up pretty good, luckily I count myself as a genius.”

Pulling some sort of tool from his coat pocket, Cartman yanks at a few nails and then pulls at the board with a gloved hand. The board comes away with a sharp snap, and falls to the ground at Cartman’s feet. He stares down at it for a moment with smug satisfaction before slamming the handle of the tool against the window and shattering it. Then, turning to Butters with that same smug look, he gestures towards the now open window. “After you.”

Doing his best to push down his fear, Butters gives a tense nod before walking over and climbing through the opening.

The silence that greets him on the other side is deafening. Away from the wind and the rustling leaves all that’s left is an uneasy stillness that lingers in the darkness as if something is just preparing to jump out and grab him. The only remission is the sound of Cartman’s muttering and heavy breaths as he half climbs and half falls into the building after him.

“Aye, it’s dark as shit in here,” is the first thing he says as he brushes himself off, grappling in his pocket for his phone and switching on the flashlight.

Through the beam of light the state of the lab is revealed. The metal lab tables are pristine, if a bit dust covered, and the vials and test tubes lining the shelves seem to be in perfect condition. But although there are no signs of malevolent scientists or blood covered tables, the emptiness of the lab speaks for itself in its own eerie way.

“Gee, where is everyone?” Butters asks, his voice echoing a little too loudly throughout the room.

And Butters isn’t just talking about Mephesto or any assistants he might have gathered, but for all the occupants he normally kept in those glass tubes that were now entirely empty. For the cages that sat unused and devoid of any life.

“Hell if I know.” Cartman answers, yet for the first time Butters catches a small waver in his tone. A bit of unease that he quickly attempts to hide with his next phrase. “It’s a big lab, he probably didn’t want all his secrets kept in the main area as soon as people like us came in. They probably just moved everything somewhere else. Come on.”

“Should we maybe try to turn on a light or somethin’?” Butters asks quietly as he follows after him, but Cartman only shakes his head.

“Power’s out. That or he has it directed somewhere else. Not like he needs it over here if he never fucking uses it.”

Butters follows the line of his cell phone light to the blank screen of what was supposed to be a digital clock. The thing now sitting useless under a fine lining of dust.

“Of course it is…” Butters mutters dejectedly under his breath, and although Cartman snorts at his words he doesn’t comment.

Their footsteps echo loudly on the tile as they make their way further inside the lab. They pass multiple rooms only to find each one as empty as the last, the entire place seeming to be abandoned. There’s nothing broken, no objects seeming to be glaringly missing. Computers still sit on desks, powered down of course but looking as if they were in working condition. Beakers sit at the edges of sinks, like they’d been in the process of being cleaned only to be left half finished.

And with every empty room that they pass, Butters’ unease about the whole thing only grows. Something deep in his gut telling him that they weren’t supposed to be here. That something definitely wasn’t right.

“Eric, shouldn’t we have seen somethin’ by now?”

To his surprise, Cartman doesn’t immediately snap at him for his question and instead seems to hesitate. His gaze narrows in on another empty room as if it had personally offended him, and he frowns. Then his lips finally part as if to answer, but whatever he was about to say Butters never finds out as Cartman’s ringtone suddenly blares out between them, making the two of them jump. “Aye, stupid thing-” He curses before pausing, looking down at the screen in surprise. “What the fuck?”

“Huh? Who is it?”

Cartman flashes the screen towards Butters, revealing the name “Mephesto” as the caller in question.

But then that surprise fades back into causal arrogance as he accepts the call and holds the phone up to his ear.

“So, finally decided to call me, eh?” Cartman immediately says, without giving the person on the other line to speak first. But after several moments, his smug grin melts into yet another frown. “Hello?” Removing the phone from his ear, he looks at the screen in disgust. “Asshole hung up on me.”

“But why would he-”

Before Butters can even finish his question, Cartman’s phone rings again. He rolls his eyes, but answers it same as before.

“Yeah, hello?” Waiting for another moment, his frown deepens. “Yeah real funny asshole, are you gonna say something or what?” He pauses, likely giving the caller another chance to respond before taking the phone and hanging up himself this time.

Of course not a moment later, it rings again.

Spitting out a frustrated curse, he shoves the phone towards Butters. “Here, you deal with this douchebag. He’s really starting to piss me off.”

Gingerly taking the phone from his hands, Butters accepts the call and holds it up to his ear. “Uh, hello? Sir?”

He’s met with silence, the faint sound of static the only sign that the call was still connected.

“...Hello?”

There’s another moment of silence, and then...

“........ _the_... _basement_ …”

The voice is paired with an increased sound of static to the point that Butters can only barely understand them.

“What? The basement, why-”

The line goes dead.

“What’d he say?” Cartman immediately asks as Butters looks at the device in confusion.

“Uh, I think he wants us to go to the basement.”

Cartman’s brow furrows. “The basement? Why?”

“I dunno, the call disconnected.”

“Probably just the shitty service in this dumb place,” he grumbles, taking back his phone and refocusing the flashlight. Sure enough a little ways down there was an elevator, and next to the elevator was a door that read “stairwell”. Cartman looks at it, and for a moment Butters detects the faintest hint of hesitation in his gaze. But then his eyes narrow and his shoulders stiffen with a familiar haughty arrogance, and without a word he begins making his way towards the door.

Butters hurries to keep up with him. “Uh Eric, do you really think we should go down there?”

“No, I think _I_ should go down and meet with this douche. You stay up here and, I don’t fucking know, scope out the place or something.”

“Gee, but I really don’t think-”

“Look Butters,” Cartman says, coming to a halt and fixing him with a hard stare. “This guy probably knows we’re here already, and you are totally looking to be a shit business partner right now, like seriouslah.” He rolls his eyes. “Just let me talk to him, and if anyone catches you just tell them you got lost going to the bathroom or something.”

But Butters knows that something in that phone call, something in this place in general, was _wrong_. It was a feeling he couldn’t shake, he only wished he could get Cartman to understand.

“Eric, somethin’ isn’t right,” he tries, even though he knows it’s futile.

‘Butters, are you going to listen to me or not?”

As expected his tone is firm and leaves no room for argument. Butters deflates with a small nod.

“Yeah, okay.”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll be back in a little bit.”

And he can do nothing as he watches Cartman disappear past the door to the stairwell.

And just like that, he’s alone.

“Aww gee…” he mumbles, kicking at the ground. If the place had been eerie before, it only increases without having someone there with him. And it’s only several moments after Cartman vanishes that Butters considers chasing after him. Cartman would be sore with him, but at least he wouldn’t have to wait alone in this place.

But then he thinks better of it.

“It’s all in your head Butters,” he tells himself quietly. “It’s just like they’ve all been tellin’ ya.”

And so he begins to wait. Humming an old song he no longer remembered the name of under his breath to fill some of the silence. When minutes pass and nothing happens, he takes to slowly walking around, making sure to always be within sight of the stairwell. He’s in the process of searching for any signs of life or maybe a working light switch when he catches the faint sound of _something_. Something that makes him stop in his tracks, although it’s just soft enough for him to be unable to identify. He approaches the direction it's coming from warily, the noise becoming a bit more clear with every step, until he can recognize the sound of sobbing. Broken and clearly feminine, coming from one of the rooms a little farther down the corridor.

Unease pricks at him from the sound, but if someone was in pain or trouble he wasn’t about to just leave them there. So, he takes a shaky step forward and calls out.

“Uh, hello, miss? Are you alright?”

There’s no answer, the cries resounding through the empty halls with the same pitch and frequency.

He takes another step forward.

“Do ya need any help?”

The sobbing continues.

Shoving down the fear stirring in his stomach, Butters makes his way towards the sound. Steps slow. Gaze wary. He follows it a good portion down the long hallway, walking until he pinpoints it coming from inside one of the rooms.

“...Miss?”

When he still gets no response, he frowns at the door before him. It was metal and looked to not only be heavy, but also powered by electricity since it didn’t have a handle. Was it possible that someone had gotten stuck inside before the power went out? He figures it could be likely, after all he’d always been pretty unlucky with situations like that too. So, with that in mind he voices, “I’m gonna look for a way to get you out, okay?” And then proceeds to look around for something that might be of use.

Although, he doesn’t have to look far.

His eyes settle on a small lever attached to the wall a few steps away from the door itself, one of the lights beside it blinking a calm and steady red. A sign that somehow the lever had some sort of power attached to it- so whether it was an activation for the door or some sort of breaker, it’d probably make sense to pull it. At least that was the thought. After all, it was just a lever. What could possibly go wrong?

It’s with that thought that Butters reaches up and grasps the handle within his palm, and then pulls it down until it clicks.

The effect is immediate.

The lights throughout the hall immediately flicker on, momentarily blinding him in their bright fluorescent hues. He stumbles back, trying to shield his eyes from the worst of it until they adjust, but not a moment later the lights sputter and then die out just as quickly as they’d turned on. He blinks, gazing around in confusion.

But it’s only then, the hallway once again dark and deafening in its silence, does Butters realize what else had changed.

The sobbing had stopped.

And in its place was a certain chill that had taken over the air. An unnatural cold that immediately puts him on edge, legs shaking subtly, and prompting him to slowly lift his gaze to the metal door.

It was open.

Only slightly, but enough to release the smell of decay that had been lingering inside. Putrid and thick, as if something had been decomposing in that closed off room for years. As if something had died and been left there to rot.

Muffling his gagging, he scrambles backwards and tries not to throw up his lunch. He doesn’t look to see what was in there, he doesn’t want to know what had been festering there. ...Or what he had just possibly let out.

Because all he could focus on was the quiet dread settling in his stomach. The pounding of his heart as adrenaline began pumping through his veins. His every instinct screaming only one thing.

_Get out. Get out.GetoutGetout._

Maybe he was crazy. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe there was a logical explanation for _all_ of this. But he’d believe that once he was far away from this stupid place. Still, he couldn’t leave Cartman. He was still somewhere in this house and there was something dangerous lurking here. He just _knew_ it.

Pulling out his phone he quickly dials his number.

It rings.

And it rings.

_And it rings._

The sound coming from his device suddenly seems way too loud, and he darts his gaze around warily. Hoping, _praying_ , that he would just _answer_ already.

It goes to voicemail.

With shaky fingers he tries again, only to get the same result.

“Come on, Eric,” he whispers against the receiver. “Where are ya?”

Something crashes from behind him, something loud and reminiscent of glass shattering.

He jumps and is immediately running. Feet taking him to one place in particular as he abandons his phone to his pocket.

He reaches the stairwell and doesn’t slow as he throws open the door runs down the steps to the basement level, stopping only when he reaches a thick metal door that’s cracked slightly open. Beside it a panel sparks brokenly, a sure sign that Cartman had come through here.

He slowly pushes the door open.

What greets him on the other side knocks the breath right out of him. Twists his stomach and causes bile to rise right back up to the surface.

He can’t breathe. Can’t scream. Can’t look away.

At the end of the small hall he had just entered, Mephesto is pinned up on the wall like a puppet. His upper body slumps down, barely concealing the flayed flesh traveling all the way down from torso to groin. The light flickers overhead, allowing Butters only glimpses of the horror before him. Of the blood and the sight of his insides beginning to pour onto the floor. Above him, scrawled in what looks like blood, are three words:

_I’m Still Here._

Finally tearing his eyes away, fear and adrenaline the only things allowing him to get a hold on his nearly dizzying nausea, he spots Cartman half curled and half slumped against the nearby wall.

A small bit of relief bites through some of the terror at the sight of him, and through the flickering lights he hastily makes his way over to him. Butters’ breathing comes in labored breaths, filling the too empty silence of the hallway, as he tries to find it in himself to speak.

“Eric….” He manages shakily after a moment. “Eric we need to…”

He lays a hand on the man’s shoulder and freezes.

“...Eric?”

Pushing his shoulder so that he would face him, he barely suppresses a scream. Cartman’s half severed head lulls back, revealing a mess of blood, bone, and tendons. His lips parted in a silent scream, eyes widened in a state of shock. As if he’d seen his killer, but had been dead before he’d even gotten the chance to scream.

Or maybe he had.

But why hadn’t he heard him? He was right on the other floor!

“Oh gosh...oh my gosh…”

_This can’t be happening._

Through the overwhelming horror, he picks up on a wet gurgling sound, as if someone is trying to speak but is unable to. As if there’s something preventing them, like having their throat cut might do...or if their lungs are filled with blood. And Butters looks down at Cartman, horrified at the prospect that he might not really be dead. That somehow he might still be living despite all sense of reason.

Then he realizes it’s coming from behind him.

An instant chill pricks up his spine, every instinct screaming at him to get out of there.

He turns.

He turns and then immediately takes a step back, his whole body shaking and feeling as if he was going to collapse. The expression ‘looking death in the face’ had never had a more literal meaning, had never had a more terrifying prospect then the figure before him, a figure that had perhaps once been human but now was something so grotesque it didn’t even have a place in the worst of his nightmares. Beyond description. Something that shouldn’t be able to exist. With sunken in eyes that gleam in the shadows. Skin that appeared to be rotting off, revealing a mess of blood and muscle underneath. Hair matted and dangling limply over its shoulders while its clothes hung off it in dirty tatters.

It gave the impression that it was a woman, or at least it was at one time. Now there was nothing human left of it, just something that by all accounts should be dead. Both in sight and in the nauseating scent of decay radiating off of her.

His mind supplies the term: _zombie_. But there is nothing zombie-like in the way she seems to flicker in the shadows. In the way that the darkness seems to follow her, dark tendrils weaving around her bloodied ankles as if they were old friends. She looks at him curiously, as a child would inspect a particularly interesting bug as he stands there completely frozen.

And then, she _smiles_.

Wide. Crazed. Without an inch of humanity.

Pure terror grips at his insides, alighting every primal instinct he has to get out of there and knocking him out of his horrified trance.

He runs.

Laughter follows him, echoing off the walls as his feet pound against the tiles and back up the stairwell. The corridors seem to lengthen before him, contorting into weird shapes and unfamiliar patterns although he knows he and Cartman had just come through this way.

He doesn’t stop. Her presence always constant, never waning. Watching him from the shadows like a thousand eyes that promise one thing: _there is no escape_.

But he doesn’t slow. Doesn’t allow himself to feel, to think, to do anything but run until his lungs feel as if they’re about to burst. He half, jumps and half falls out the window where they’d entered, but doesn’t allow himself even a moment of relief as he just continues to run.

He feels her eyes watching him as he tears down the hill and even when he almost gets his hand jammed in his haste to finally push the stupid gate open.

Her presence lingers, as does the sound of her laughter that carries on the wind even when he’s far away from that cursed lab.

And he knows deep down that there was no victory in his escape. His life was always in her hands, and for some reason, she _lets_ him live.

He doesn’t dare question why.


	2. Chapter 2

_Part 1: Bebe_

_..._

“Ugh Wendy, I still think we should’ve just went to a bar. I feel like I’m sixty years old sitting here on a Friday night.”

Bebe huffs and crosses her arms on the table, hunching over to rest her chin on them. She looks into her vanilla latte as if the very fact that it didn’t contain alcohol offended her. Which, it kind of did if she were being honest. The cafe was cute, and she loved going there for lunch every once and a while, but it wouldn’t have ranked high in her choices of where to go with her friends after sundown on a weekend.

Wendy lays a hand on her shoulder.

“Calm down granny, I can assure you that you don’t look a day over fifty-nine. As far as I can see you only have a few wrinkles.”

At her words, Bebe immediately straightens, a mild panic shooting through her.

“A few!?”

Grabbing her phone, Bebe looks into its reflective surface and inspects herself for any tiny wrinkles she might have missed. She wasn’t even going to be thirty for another two years! And she moisturized every day! Although she did switch to a new moisturizer a few weeks ago-

He thoughts are cut off by a laugh, and she turns with a frown towards her very amused looking fiance.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Wendy tells her. “Relax, it just so happens that I like my friends much better when they’re sober.”

Placated, Bebe gives Wendy a playful shove before pointing one of her red-manicured fingers in her direction. “See, I, on the other hand, think they’re much more fun when they’re shit-faced drunk.”

“Bebe! Need I remind you what happened the last time we took the guys to a bar?”

Wendy crosses her arms and Bebe can’t help but giggle at her disapproving expression paired with the reminder of the night that never failed to amuse her. Catching sight of two forms approaching their table, her smile only widens. “Oh I think Stan remembers that one especially well,” Bebe says with no small amount of mischievousness once the man in question reaches their table. “Don’t you sweetie?”

Stan, who had been about to take the seat next to Kenny at the table across from her and Wendy, stops and blinks as he realizes he’d just walked into some sort of discussion about himself.

“What are we talking about?” He asks a bit warily.

“Oh you know, you remember last year when we went to that bar to celebrate me Wends’ engagement and-”

“Stop talking.” He quickly cuts her off, tone forcefully flat. “I thought we agreed to never bring that up again.”

Bebe once again tries to muffle her increasing laughter at his almost _pained_ expression. She’d never have finished that statement of course, she wasn’t _that_ cruel. He was just _so_ fun to tease.

Looking between the two of them, Kenny suddenly frowns. “Wait, what’d I miss? I don’t remember anything happening.”

Oh, this was just _too_ good.

Ignoring Wendy’s warning kick to her leg, Bebe dawns a playful smirk and proceeds as if she intended to actually answer him.

“Well you see-”

“ _Bebe_!”

Her words fade into laughter as she’s overcome with mirth. Oh, his face was absolutely _priceless_! This was _so_ worth the second kick to her leg.

‘I’m only kidding,” she says once she trusts herself to speak again, wiping a tear away from her eye. “It was nothing Kenny, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it.”

Kenny of course only looks more curious in the wake of her dismissal, but before he can get a word out Wendy quickly attempts to change the subject. “So, Kenny, have you heard from Kyle or Butters?”

After throwing one last questioning look towards Bebe, he turns to Wendy and nods. “They’re both going to be late. Butters is helping Cartman with a business deal or something, and Kyle said he was making a stop at the forensics lab before meeting us here.”

Bebe curls her nose up. “Gross.”

“Well hopefully they don’t take too long,” Wendy says, lip tilting into a small frown. “This is the first time we’re going to have the gang back together in what feels like forever!”

Bebe has to nod her agreement at that, and Stan and Kenny slowly do the same. It had been far too long since they’d all hung out together like they used to when they were back in high school. Of course, they always knew things would change after they graduated, each of them going different ways for college and such. But eventually they’d all ended back up at their little town, and it was a shame they didn’t see each other as often as they’d like. Sure they still texted, and sure they’d meet up with one another every once in a while, but careers made it difficult to sync up a time and date that worked for all of them. They’d had to plan weeks in advance to even get this single night, and now two out of the six of them were still going to be late.

Things just weren’t as simple as they used to be.

“Hey don’t look at me,” Kenny answers after a moment, leaning back in his seat to look at the three of them. “I’ve just been doing freelance work. It’s you guys who’ve been off saving the world or whatever the hell it is you do.”

Without missing a beat, Wendy quips, “I’m glad someone’s finally seeing my job for what it is.”

“Hey, how is your new job anyway?” Stan asks after releasing a quiet snort of laughter.

“Those little kids at South Park Elementary have never been more ready to kick ass.” She pauses. ”Well, the ones who join my class at least.”

“You’re doing the Lord's work, Wends,” Kenny supplies.

And Bebe certainly wasn’t about to disagree with that opinion. Although, for that, she had her own reasons. After all, having a girlfriend who was a martial arts instructor _definitely_ had its perks.

“And it keeps her super in-shape, if you know what I mean.” Bebe winks at Kenny and he laughs and high fives her from across the table. Wendy gives the both of them an unimpressed look and lightly shoves Bebe’s shoulder, but she’d long given up on trying to put a stop to her and Kenny’s behavior. Shameless, the two of them. Bebe liked to think it was part of their charm.

So instead of a reprimand, Wendy just raises an eyebrow and adds, “You’re one to talk, Miss Yoga Instructor.”

At her words, Kenny gives a long-suffering sigh from across the table. A fake and clearly exaggerated sound, but also an amusing callback to the days where a day didn’t go by without him asking them when they were planning to make a sextape and if he could film it. After a while, Bebe had gotten the impression that he only kept asking because he knew it always sparked a reaction from Kyle. Not so much anger, but a ‘ _Kenny if you ask them that one more time I’m going to cut your balls off_ ’ type of sheer exasperation. Good times.

“I swear,” Kenny says with a grin, “you two are like the hottest, most badass couple in town.”

“Which just reminds me,” Bebe singsongs, not even bothering to deny his accusation. “We have to get you to start dating someone, Kenny! It’s been what, years?!”

Of course, Bebe was well aware of the reason that Kenny McCormick himself had been brushing off good and attractive people’s advances for years now. But sometimes a girl had to push. Had to keep throwing out the hard questions to keep her boys on their toes.

Still, uncharacteristically, Kenny shifts a little in his seat, clearly a bit uncomfortable at the question. And Bebe wonders if she pushed a little too far.

“I’m just...waiting,” he says carefully. “For the right person, you know?”

Bebe gives him a small apologetic smile and she nods.

Yeah, she knew.

She then turns her gaze to Stan with plans to ask him the very same question just to make it equal, she was nothing if not fair in choosing her victims after all. But he’s not even paying attention to her anymore, instead, his gaze is firmly planted on Kenny. A small frown tugging at his lips, yet looking as if he was waiting for Kenny to look over and catch his eye. He never does so, however. For, in the next moment, before Kenny could notice, or anyone could break the sudden silence, the cafe door jingles and a very certain redhead enters the place and immediately earns the entirety of Kenny’s attention. Stan’s frown deepens as he follows Kenny’s gaze to Kyle, the guy approaching their table while staring down at his phone with a pensive expression, looking more than a little frustrated.

Then again, Bebe couldn’t remember the last time she had seen Kyle completely relaxed. That boy was always stressing himself out over something.

As he reaches their table, Kenny is the first to greet him. “Kyle!”

At the sound of his name, Kyle finally lifts his gaze from his phone until he finds the source. Spotting Kenny, Kyle’s gaze immediately softens. Not something that many people would notice, but Bebe had always been good at reading people. A master of sitting back and observing, and was always a queen at gossip collecting. Not that she’d ever use her friends as a subject of gossip, well...at least with anyone other than Wendy.

“Hey,” Kyle says, pocketing his phone and seeming to eye Kenny a bit more critically. ‘Are you feeling alright?” And at the question, Kenny’s bright-eyed look slightly falls, melting into confusion.

“Huh, yeah I feel fine. Why?”

“It’s just that you sounded pretty bad when you called me last night.”

Kenny blinks, seeming to look even more confused. “I...called you?”

“Yeah,” Kyle says slowly, eyeing him with concern. “You left a voicemail. It was kind of hard to understand you but-”

“Oh. _Oh_.” Kenny’s eyes suddenly widen. “No, that was nothing,” He says a bit too quickly before releasing a slightly nervous-sounding laugh. “Don’t worry about it. And uh, if you could delete that? That’d be great.”

“Okay…?” Kyle raises a brow. “Now I’m worried.”

But Kenny just gives him a slightly lopsided smile. “It was really nothing to worry about, Ky. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Their banter drowns out into soundless noise as Bebe loses interest, and she can’t help but roll her eyes. Put the two of them together and suddenly it’s like the rest of them weren’t even there. It was cute, but the guy could at least have the decency to say hi to her. She’d hadn’t seen him face to face in what, three months? And here the two of them saw each other all the damn time!

She clears her throat, successfully getting them to finally focus their attention on her. “Oh hey, Kyle. Nice to see you too.” She crosses her arms and is satisfied to see that Kyle at least has the decency to look guilty. “I do hope you washed your hands after you stopped playing with all the dead people, or whatever it is you do.”

“I don’t _play_ with dead people, Bebe.” He scoffs and seats himself in the seat next to Wendy and across from Kenny, returning Wendy’s smile as he does so. “I just had to stop to ask the lab techs a few questions. The chief assigned me to the victim’s case last night.”

Kenny gives him an odd look. “But I already thought you were working on that other case?”

“Yeah well, they were special circumstances.” The pensiveness returns once more, and he releases a heavy sigh when he catches the look on Kenny’s face. “She’d been attacked and I was the first one at the scene,” he explains dismally, glaring down at the table. “But by the time I got there, it was already too late. I just sat there and told her everything was going to be okay as she died, as if that did any damn good. I was useless.”

“You’re not useless, Ky.” Kenny’s softly spoken words cut through the suddenly heavy silence, and Kyle’s gaze shoots over to him in surprise. “I mean I think I’d be pretty thankful to have someone like you there with me, if I was uh, you know, dying.” Kyle fixes him with an inscrutable look and Kenny offers a weak smile. “I think it would just really suck to die alone.”

Finally, Kyle’s posture slightly relaxes, and he matches Kenny’s smile. “Yeah, that’s what I keep telling myself.”

“Kenny’s right,” Bebe speaks up. “So, don’t go blaming yourself, Kyle. You might be a bit of an ass, but you’re a great detective.”

‘And I’m sure you’re going to find whatever bastard did that to that girl,” Wendy adds.

Smile still in place, he nods to the both of them. “Thanks guys.”

And with that the tension lifts. Some still lines his shoulders, his own personal war that will always flicker just under the surface, _‘It just comes with the job’_ he would say. But he looks better, more at ease, and Bebe likes to think that they were able to help him, even if only a little bit. Sometimes he just took too much on himself.

“Is that why you haven’t been at your house the past few days?” Kenny asks him.

And the meaning of Kenny’s words isn’t all that surprising. They were all well aware that although Kyle owned his own place, he hardly ever spent the night there. Bebe wasn’t lying when she said he was a good detective, and considering South Park’s relatively small size he was often taken outside of the town’s borders to neighboring towns and nearby cities on assignments. A lot of times it was just too much to drive back and forth. And Kenny, since his siblings had moved to the city a few years back and he had chosen to stay behind for reasons Bebe only ever got vague answers to, often chose to crash at his friend’s places. It only made sense that he’d end up at Kyle’s place most of the time. Apparently, Kyle had even given him his own key.

Kyle’s brow creases as if he hadn’t been expecting the question, or maybe as if he didn’t really know the answer. “Uh, partly?” He answers after a moment. “I was also on a stake-out one...two nights ago? And by the time I was done I decided to just sleep in my car for the night.”

At his answer, Kenny fixes him with a worried look. “Again?”

Before Kyle can reply, Stan suddenly speaks up for the first time since Kyle had shown up.

“You know Kenny,” he starts with a slight edge to his tone, “you can sleep at my place anytime you want. You don’t have to keep going to Kyle’s.”

Looking slightly taken aback, Kenny shrugs. “I know, it’s just habit I guess. Ky’s hardly ever home anyway.”

With a nod, Kyle adds, “It’s not a big deal, Stan.”

But Stan’s gaze only narrows, looking at his best friend as if it was a big deal, before abruptly rising to his feet with a muttered, “Yeah, whatever.”

And then he storms off.

Staring after his quickly retreating form in confusion, Kenny turns to Kyle as if he had an answer to what just happened. “What’s his problem?”

But Kyle just shrugs, looking at the entrance door that his best friend had disappeared behind with a frown.

Wendy and Bebe exchange a look.

“I’ll go after him,” Bebe volunteers, to which Wendy offers her a grateful smile. Standing, Bebe leans down to give her a quick peck on the lips with a promise of, “I’ll be right back.”

And then she’s making her way out of the cafe after Stan.

Once outside she’s greeted by the cool night air. The stars up above seem peaceful, no clouds to block the view of them or obnoxious street lights like you’d find in a city. When she’d gone away for college she had missed this. The calm and the tranquil air. City life seemed great, she thought it’d be right up her alley, but nothing quite compared to the way it was back home.

“You come out here to find me, or you just gonna stare at the sky all night?”

She turns to see Stan leaning against the side of the cafe. Despite his words and earlier actions, there’s nothing harsh in his expression, just a hint of exhaustion that shows in the way his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Maybe I came out here to do both.”

He just scoffs and shakes his head. “Come on, no lecture? No, _‘You only have yourself to blame, Stan. You shouldn’t be taking this out on Kyle.’_ That’s how Wendy usually starts.”

Bebe leans against the wall beside him. “Well, I’m not Wendy.”

And that’s all she says before she goes back to looking at the sky. She knew when not to push, and when it wasn’t exactly her place to. Still, she can feel his eyes on her as she stands there. Searching. Considering. Finally, he sighs. “How’d you first find out, anyway? Did Wendy tell you?”

She shakes her head. “She didn’t have to. It’s all over your face Stan, and I’m _very_ observant.” Then, she smirks. “I’m not as dumb as I make myself look, you know.”

“Who else knows?”

Smirk fading into something far more gentle, she gives him a reassuring smile. “If you’re worried about Kenny, don’t be. That guy can spot flirting from a mile away until the moment it’s directed at him.” She lets out a small laugh. “I’m sure he doesn’t have a clue, especially since your flirting efforts are pretty terrible.”

“They are _not_.”

She rests a hand on his shoulder.

“Sweetie, getting half-naked in a bar is not going to win over anyone’s heart. It’s just going to get you kicked out.”

He quickly turns in an attempt to glare at her, shame and embarrassment heating up his face. “Okay, one: I was drunk. And two: I thought I told you to never bring that up again.”

“It’s just too precious not to!” She argues with a delighted laugh. “You’re just lucky we got Butters to drag you into the bathroom in time.”

“Uh huh,” he says, staring at her blandly.

Amusement dying down, she shakes her head with one more light laugh before turning serious once more. “But seriously Stan, it’s been what twelve years?”

Twelve years since he had broken up with Wendy Testaburger.

Twelve years since he had confessed to being in love with someone else.

He smiles sheepishly. “Thirteen actually.”

“ _Tell_ him.” She turns to fully face him, grabbing his shoulders and holding him at arm's length so that he would look at her. This wasn’t about whether Kenny should end up with Kyle or with Stan, but about the fact that the person right in front of her was one of her best friends and she cared about him. “Before it’s too late and you never get the chance. Because then you’ll regret it for the rest of your life, Stan.”

But he only releases a small sigh at her words, a testament to the fact that he’d heard them many times before. His gaze focuses on a point beyond her shoulder, where the entrance to the cafe sat, and his shoulders slump. “What if it’s already too late?”

“Then maybe knowing that would make it easier to move on,” she says gently, before releasing her grip and giving his shoulder one final pat. “Think about it, okay?”

She thinks he’s about to agree, when something suddenly hardens in his expression. There’s frustration there. Old and familiar. “Thanks, but really, I’m _fine_ , Bebe,” he says, tone stern but not unkind. “I really don’t need you and Wendy constantly treating me like I need my hand held all the time.”

Still, she takes his sudden burst of stubbornness in stride. Settling back on her hip and crossing her arms as she gazes at him in amusement. “You know,” she says, “you’re starting to sound a lot like Kyle.”

Stan blanches.

“Am not.”

“Hey,” she shrugs. “Spend enough time around someone, and it’s bound to happen right?”

“As if that ass is ever even around anymore,” he mutters, causing her to sigh. So, looked like they were back to this again.

“You know he tries.”

But Stan only shakes his head. “Let’s just go back, okay?”

“Okay.”

Knowing better than to try to insert herself into that old argument, Bebe concedes and says nothing more as she follows Stan back into the cafe. They head back towards the table, yet the moment they return it’s to the sight of Kyle rising from his seat and shoving his phone into his pocket as if he’d just gotten off the phone.

“Sorry guys,” he says to the lot of them, already beginning to move towards the exit. “I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Kyle!?” Kenny calls after him, but Kyle only gives him one last wave and a small probably meant to be reassuring smile before he exits the building. “And he’s gone,” Kenny comments, looking back to the table dejectedly.

“What’d we miss?” Bebe asks Wendy, although it’s Kenny who answers, giving her a smile although it falls short.

“Just Kyle being Kyle. You know how his work is.”

She nods in understanding, briefly wondering why Stan never got those same calls, considering he was a cop and she was pretty sure they went to school for the same thing. Maybe only detectives had to deal with them? She’d ask, but she figured she’d wait until Stan was in a better mood since Kyle in general nowadays was kind of a sore subject.

“Any luck with Butters?” She asks, figuring it was probably for the best to get the subject away from Kyle for the moment. Especially with Stan glowering towards the door the way he was.

Kenny shakes his head. “He’s still not picking up.”

“You think he’s okay?” Wendy asks.

“I mean he should be?” Kenny answers, although she can tell the question sparks a bit of worry in him. It _was_ pretty unusual for Butters to not answer his phone. “I just talked to him this-”

Just then he’s interrupted by the sound of his phone ringing.

Looking down at it, a small bit of relief crosses his expression as he says, “It’s Butters.” However, the moment he answers the call his entire expression changes. “Wait what?” he says into the receiver, tone alarmed in a way that Bebe’s pretty sure she had never seen from the normally easy-going blond before. It puts her instantly on edge, and sharing a glance with both Wendy and Stan it’s clear she’s not the only one feeling it. “Slow down, I can’t even understand you. Who’s chasing- Wait where are you?” He stands from his seat and begins to pace a small line in front of their table. “Leo, _slow down_. Where are you?” A pause. “Okay, stay there, I’ll be right over. Okay?”

He ends the call and then just stands there for a moment, as if trying to process everything or figure out what exactly he should do.

“Kenny,” Wendy says, worry clear in her tone. “Is something wrong?”

Kenny looks up at her in surprise as if he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone. Then he sighs. “I couldn’t really understand him, but something must have happened. He says he’s by First Street.”

“We’ll go with you,” Wendy answers immediately, springing into the action as she so often did. “To make sure he’s okay.”

As Wendy gather’s her and Bebe’s things from the table, Bebe and Stan both voice their agreement. Whatever this was, Butters and Kenny weren’t about to deal with it alone.

Kenny gives them an appreciative smile. “Thanks guys.”

Bebe returns his smile, and then with that they’re hurrying towards the exit.

They all end up piling into Stan’s car since he’s the one who’d driven him and Kenny there in the first place. And the whole ride there is filled with tense silence, with Stan’s hands firmly gripping the steering wheel and Kenny continuously staring down at his phone in case Butters happened to call or message him again.

He doesn’t.

Stan drives up and down First Street several times with no luck. At this time of night they spot no people walking along the sidewalks, and the shadows fill in every gap between buildings making it hard to see.

“Maybe we should get out and walk?” Bebe suggests eventually, as the tense air begins to fill the car as Kenny calls Butters for the third time and it once again goes straight to voicemail.

“ _Shit_ ,” he curses, glaring down at his phone as if it was at fault for none of his calls going through. “Yeah Stan, just pull over. I just really fucking hope he’s still here.”

No one says anything to that, and Stan pulls over to the side of the road and they all exit the car in silence.

They begin walking down the street as a group, each of them taking turns calling Butters’ name. Bebe chances a glance up at the stars and can’t help but feel like her small conversation with Stan had been on another night entirely. The night that had once felt calm and peaceful now felt heavy with worry and tension. Almost suffocating.

_Butters, where are you?_

A small prickle of unease suddenly hits her and she shivers despite the relatively mild temperature. She can feel eyes on her skin, as if someone is there watching her. She finds her gaze trailing to a spot across the street where the feeling is originating from, and she spots the shape of a woman. It was hard to make out her features due to the way she was lingering in the shadows, but despite the unease that her presence makes her feel, she’s still the only person she’d seen out here tonight and so maybe she’d seen Butters?

Something stops her from calling out to her though, and instead she turns back to Stan who was trailing slightly behind her.

“Hey, maybe we should ask-“ but the words freeze on her tongue as she turns back to where the woman once stood.

She was gone.

“Bebe, is something wrong?” Stan asks, fully coming up beside her.

“No I just thought…” She trails off, looking around a bit more, and brows knitting in confusion when she spots no one else besides her friends. It’s not like she was going crazy, right? “Did you see anyone?” She quickly asks Stan. “Across the street just now?”

“Uh no. I’m pretty sure it’s just us out here.”

She nods slowly, not really sure what to think. “Right. Don’t mind me, just thought I saw something.”

Stan gives her an odd look, but before he can question further, Wendy’s voice cuts through the air from ahead of them.

“Guys, I found him!”

And suddenly all thoughts leave Bebe’s mind as she’s quickly following after Wendy around the side of a small shop. Although, the moment she turns the corner she freezes in shock at the sight before her, Stan doing the same as he stops short beside her the moment after she does. Kenny stands a little to the side, seeming to also be at a loss on what to do as they all try to process what exactly is going on.

Butters on the ground with his knees tucked to his chest, rocking back and forth with his hands clutched tightly over his ears. Wendy is already on the ground beside him, whispering soothing words and trying to pry his hands away so he could hear her. But it’s as if he doesn’t even notice her. He just keeps mumbling to himself, fragmented sentences and words that seem to make no sense. Something about a _woman_? And _no escape_? And...someone was _dead_?

Fear and worry begin to mix within Bebe’s gut.

What the hell happened?

Finally, Wendy manages to pry Butters hands from his ears, and the moment she does so it’s as if a spell has been broken. He blinks and looks around at all of them as if he only just noticed they were there. His muttering now over, he just opens his mouth as if to say something, before closing it and gazing down in the ground in pure confusion. As if he was lost. As if he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there.

“Butters,” Wendy says slowly when it’s clear he’s not about to say anything on his own or retreat back into himself. “What happened?”

Butters blinks again as if trying to recall a memory. Then he stiffens, his gaze shooting up and focusing in on Kenny.

“I-I thought it was you and I answered but it wasn’t it was her. Kenny, it was _her_. I thought I escaped but I didn’t. _She’s still here_.” He says the last part in a broken terrified whisper, eyes growing wide as if just coming to some horrifying conclusion. “He knew. He musta knew. Then she killed him.”

“Butters, what are you talking about?” Kenny asks him slowly, taking a wary step forward. “Who killed who?”

But before Butters can answer they all jump in surprise at the sudden sound of police sirens. They echo up the street until the police cars themselves drive past them, and they all watch until they disappear around the corner.

When they look back, Butters eyes are blown wide with horror. “No...no one deserves...they _can’t_. I gotta…”

And just like that, he’s scrambling up from the ground, managing to tear himself out of Wendy’s grip, and running off in the direction the police cars had vanished.

“Butters! Wait!” Kenny calls after him, but Butters doesn’t even slow. “ _Shit_.”

The next second Kenny and Wendy are running after him, and for a moment Bebe is torn between following them or Stan who instead hurries towards where he parked the car. But in a split decision, she decides to run after Kenny and Wendy.

They tear down street after street after him, chasing him down as miraculously he manages to stay ahead of them despite the unraveled state he’d just been in. Even Wendy, for as fit as she is, is heaving with exertion by the time Butters vanishes through a gate that several police cars sit parked in front of.

The lab?

She shares a glance with Kenny and Wendy, but they don’t stop. They just keep pushing forward until the familiar tells of a crime scene become apparent, Butters having been apprehended just before crossing the bright yellow line of police tape. An officer was holding him back but Butters didn’t stop squirming and trying to break free from his hold while continuing to yell things hauntingly similar to what he’d been saying in his muttering earlier.

Bebe didn’t even know what to think. This night just kept getting weirder and weirder.

“You can’t go in there!” Butters calls, tone laced with desperation as the three of them cross the final bit of distance between them. “She’ll kill you! She-”

But before any of them can even do anything to try to get a handle on the situation, another voice speaks up.

“It’s alright, you can let him go. He’s with me.”

And suddenly Kyle is there, this apparently being where he’d been called off to earlier. Despite the circumstances, he looks completely calm. Tired, definitely. But even as he peels off a glove caked with what appears to be blood, he does so with and air of detachment. And seeing him, a familiar and calm presence who appeared to somehow have a handle on everything, Bebe could physically feel herself start to relax. Glancing briefly around, she can see the others start to do the same, and never before did she have more respect for Kyle Broflovski and his skill at his job then in that moment. Even Butters seems to relax at the sight of him, although still clearly teetering on the verge of hysterics. But Butters doesn’t try to run again, not even when the officer releases him with a nod toward Kyle and walks away back towards the crime scene.

Yet, when Kyle next speaks, it’s not to Butters but to all four of them. His tone deathly serious. “You guys shouldn’t be here.”

“Yeah, we know.” Kenny heaves out, still a little breathless from running. “We went to find Butters and after we found him he just started running here.”

As soon as Kenny’s done speaking, Kyle turns his gaze towards Butters in question.

“I _saw_ it, Kyle,” he gasps, no longer shouting but with the same pleading desperation from earlier. “She was _right_ there! She _killed_ him!”

Kyle stiffens at his words. “You saw?” Is all he asks.

“I-I didn’t watch her do it. But she was _there_ , woulda killed me too if I hadn’t gotten away.”

Kyle takes a step forward, sharp interest in his gaze. “Who? Butters, who did you see?”

“The ghost! The ghost of the lab!”

...A ghost?

Butters didn’t still believe that sort of stuff, did he?

Unsurprisingly, Kyle just sighs, lifting a hand as if to run it through his hair, before clearly thinking better of it and dropping it back down to his side. Then he turns away from Butters to look between Kenny and Wendy.

“Get him home, he’s traumatized,” he says flatly. “If he starts showing signs of shock get him to a hospital.”

Wendy immediately springs into action, gently leading Butters away from the scene while muttering soothing words to him. Bebe doesn’t bother to help, this kind of stuff had always been Wendy’s specialty. She worked with kids for a reason after all, she’d always had a bit of a motherly side to her even if she always liked to deny it. Wendy could handle this.

Kenny seems to think the same because instead of following after her to help he remains where he is and keeps his gaze trained on Kyle.

“Kyle, what’s going on?”

He hesitates.

“ _Kyle_. What happened?”

Kyle sighs again, suddenly looking exhausted. “It’s Cartman,” he admits. “They found his body outside of the lab.” Then he pauses as if carefully considering his next words. “It...isn’t pretty.”

The words echo hallowly through Bebe’s ears.

Cartman was... _dead_?

The guy was a pretty big asshole, and she’d never considered themselves friends, but she’d known him. Had grown up with him. And now he had just been, what? _Murdered_?

It didn’t seem real.

Before her, she watches as Kenny swallows thickly as he digests the news. She knew they had been friends, once. But he takes it well, or at least puts it aside for the moment, because when he looks back to Kyle there’s no sign of grief. “You think Butters…watched?”

“If he’s talking about seeing ghosts, then yeah, probably,” Kyle says as if he’s just talking about another case. Another nameless victim or witness. Bebe briefly wonders if that was just how he coped, or if seeing so much blood and death had really somehow made him immune to it. “The mind affects memories in weird ways after trauma, we’re just lucky that he managed to get away.”

All things considered, Kenny seemed to be taking this whole thing pretty well too. Bebe, on the other hand, was just numb. Taking everything in but mind devoid of any idea of how she could possibly help or _do_ anything.

“Who do you think did it?” Kenny asks Kyle.

“Can’t say. But-”

He never finishes his sentence, for in the next moment an officer steps towards him and speaks, successfully snagging his attention.

“Detective Broflovski, when you have a moment.”

Kyle stiffly nods. “I’ll be right there.” But when he turns back to Kenny some of his professionalism melts and he seems torn over something. He eyes him with concern before taking a deep breath and speaking in a tone a bit softer than before. “I have to go, but be careful, okay? Wherever you stay tonight, make sure all the doors and windows are locked.” He glances over to where Wendy was still leading away Butters, the blond clearly shaking and muttering under his breath from within her grip. “He’ll have to give his statement to the police, but that can wait until after he’s calmed down. But if you manage to get any details from him in the meantime, let me know.” He grimaces. “It’s...going to be another late night.”

Kenny nods. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Don’t worry about me.” His lips quirk slightly upwards. “I’ll call you later, alright?” Then with one final heavy sigh and a weak smile, he turns and heads back up the hill.

Yet, as Bebe watches after him a sudden chill goes up her spine. A quiet dread that prickles her skin as if something is lurking nearby. Waiting. Watching. Wanting-

Something grabs her shoulder.

She jumps and whirls around only to see Kenny.

“You ready to go?” He asks.

Heart palpitating fiercely in her chest, Bebe glances behind his shoulder and notices that at the base of the hill Stan and Wendy were now talking by his car while Butters’ form sat already seated inside. Still, she hesitates on her answer, turning to look back towards the lab.

The feeling was gone.

It was probably just her imagination.

“Yeah,” she says finally, giving Kenny a shaky smile. “Let’s just get away from here.”


	3. Chapter 3

They end up driving to Kyle’s place.

It was a unanimous decision made shortly after they were all seated in Stan’s car.

Unanimous, much in the way that at first it had gone without saying that Stan should just start driving. That the specifics of the destination was secondary to just getting Butters away from the place that he kept casting terrified glances at.

But as soon as he was about to put the car into drive, he was stopped by Kenny.

“Wait, Stan.”

They all looked to him in confusion, but he wasn’t paying them any attention. Instead he was looking out the window, much in the same way Butters had been doing, instead with less fear and more open confusion. As if he was looking for something that was no longer there, or was never there at all.

“Kenny,” Stan finally says when Kenny remains silent. “What is it?”

“No, I just thought I heard someone telling us to wait...” He turns to look at each of them in turn, brows furrowing. “ ...You guys didn’t hear that?”

His question is met with various degrees of concern and confusion. Bebe sure hadn’t heard anything, and meeting Wendy then Stan’s eyes, it seemed that they hadn’t either. Kenny’s frown deepens, but just when it looks like he’s about to say something, explain himself maybe, a quiet voice speaks up.

“...It was probably _her_ ,” Butters whispers, speaking for the first time since they’d entered the car.

A shiver travels down Bebe’s spine at his words, the implication making everyone in the car go completely silent. Ghost or not, Butters had seen _something_. Something horrible. Awful. Terrible enough to make him continue to stare blankly at the seat in front of him with unseeing eyes. As if seeing what he had witnessed all over again. As if what he had seen was never really gone.

_She’s still here._

That’s what he had said, wasn’t it? Maybe that’s what he meant.

Kyle was right, seeing a friend get murdered like that would be enough to traumatize anybody. But could it be possible that maybe Cartman’s killer hadn't been entirely human? That maybe-

“It was nothing like that, Leo.” Kenny’s voice cuts through her thoughts, speaking through the uneasy tension in the suddenly stuffy and cramped car interior. “I probably just overheard something from on top of the hill. Sorry, let’s get out of here.”

Yet as Stan puts the car into drive, Kenny looks back at the lab with a certain degree of suspicion. As if he was still waiting for someone or... _something_ to show up.

Bebe knew the feeling.

Either they were all starting to go crazy, or there was something _very_ wrong with that lab.

“You think Kyle will be okay?” She finds herself asking, tone quiet yet resounding loudly through the small space of the car.

Kenny immediately stiffens, and although he turns towards her he doesn’t meet her eyes. Instead he focuses his gaze down at his lap and he bites his lip, possibly in a small nervous habit that she had never picked up on before. Had she ever even seen Kenny nervous before? Worried, sure. But he usually brushed that off the minute he noticed someone was looking. This was different.

“Ky’s always been able to take care of himself,” he says eventually, finally giving her an almost honest looking smile that she might have believed if it wasn’t for his earlier hesitance. “He’ll be okay.”

Despite his words, the moment the words leave his lips his eyes drift back towards the lab, and she doesn’t have to question what sparked his nerves. She knows distinctly why his answer is a little too serious to just be referring to leaving a friend to a crime scene and a lack of sleep.

It wasn’t just her that had felt it.

Eyes on the back of her neck. The faint chill dusting the wind. The prickle of unease causing her to shiver as her body reacted to some primal instinct, as if it _knew_ something was there lurking in the shadows.

Watching. Waiting. _Wanting_ -

“Kyle’s the only one of us who has a home security system,” Kenny says, cutting off her dark line of thinking. “It might be a good idea with...you know.”

And that’s all that has to be said before they all nod in agreement. Not even Stan argues as he silently puts on the blinker and turns onto a road that would take them to Kyle’s place.

They ride in silence for the rest of the drive. Upon reaching Kyle’s house at the very end of the street, Stan pulls into the driveway and parks. The moment the engine cuts off, every door opens as they all exit the car a bit too eagerly. It wasn’t that the silence had been awkward, only a bit too heavy. Filled with too many thoughts and unsaid things between them, Cartman’s death looming over them all like its own silent presence.

Entering the cool night air, Bebe takes a deep breath and watches Kenny immediately head towards Kyle’s front door, key already in hand. Wendy quietly asks Stan something as they trail after Kenny, while Bebe waits for Butters, his movements slow and almost robotic as he gently closes the car door behind him. She offers him a smile that he doesn’t see, and with another deep breath she takes her place as a silent presence beside him as the two of them bring up the rear. Butters had always been someone they could count on for small talk in times like these. Someone who was always willing to fill silences when everyone else was too busy in their own heads. It was weird having him so quiet. Almost...unsettling in a way.

She couldn’t imagine what he was going through. Maybe a distraction would help, she only wished she was as good as Wendy at finding comforting words to say.

But Butters doesn’t seem all that interested in conversation in the first place. He doesn’t even look at her. Instead, his gaze darts around the area in an almost frenzied panic she’d only ever seen from Tweek on one of his particularly bad days.

Then, without warning, Butters makes a choked gasping sound and stumbles back.

“Butters?!” She asks, instantly on alert. “What’s wrong?”

She follows his line of sight, his eyes wide with terror, yet sees _nothing_. The night as still and lifeless as ever.

And sure enough, in the next moment Butters just shakes his head and quickens his steps after the others. All she can do is watch, confusion rooting her in place, as he reaches Kenny at the now unlocked door and disappears into the house behind Wendy and Stan.

Bebe looks back out into the trees, searching for something, _anything_ she might have missed. A prickle of unease hits her, likely both in response to Butters’ fear and to the depth of the shadows between the trees that anything could be lurking in. The unknowable darkness making way for the worst her imagination had to offer. Masked killers. Giant spiders. _Ghosts_. But all is still with the exception of the branches and leaves rattling with the faint wind.

Sparing the woods one last glance, she quickly follows the others inside.

The moment she’s through the door, Kenny immediately shuts and locks it behind her, giving her a faint sense of comfort from the quiet foreboding that had plagued her out there. Kyle had a security system, they were safe. No masked killers, or giant spiders or...well, ghosts couldn’t really hurt a person, right?

And here she was actually considering the existence of ghosts. _Get it together, girl._

She watches Wendy lead Butters over to the sofa, the blond once again looking only partly aware of what was going on around him. Poor guy. Looking around the room, Bebe realizes she couldn’t really remember the last time she’d been in Kyle’s house. It was probably shortly after he bought it. Yet, of course, the place looked pretty much the same as she remembers it, plain and without a personal touch to be found. Some flowers or something would have been nice, even a few photographs on the walls, but clearly that wasn’t high on Kyle’s list of priorities. The only thing that gave the impression that it was lived in at all was a beat-up looking laptop and a used coffee mug sitting on the coffee table, and she was pretty sure they were Kenny’s.

The place _looked_ lonely. Too empty.

It was almost sad in a way.

Maybe she could go and buy him a nice big houseplant. Or maybe Kenny could even hang up some of his paintings, she was sure Kyle would let him if he asked. Did he even paint traditionally anymore? She’d have to ask him, but she was pretty sure last she’d heard Stan had offered up one of his spare rooms for storage, so some of his older stuff might be there.

“Are you sure it’s alright we’re here, Kenny?” Wendy’s tentative voice breaks through her thoughts, the first one willing break the silence. “It’s kinda weird without Kyle.”

Kenny waves off her concern. “Believe me Wends, it’s fine. Ky wouldn’t mind.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Of course, I’m sure.” He gives her a small smile, one that falls slightly when his gaze shifts to Butters. “So, uh, Leo, feeling any better, buddy? Can I get you something? Water? Juice? Something to eat?”

“Water would be nice,” he says quietly.

“You got it, I’ll be right back.”

Kenny exits the room a bit faster than necessary, and Bebe has to wonder if he’d made the offer out of honest concern or if he just needed to be doing something. Bebe could understand that. Sometimes it was easier to keep busy then to stand around doing nothing.

But what else could they even do? Turn on the TV? Make small talk? Pretend everything was fine when they had a friend on the verge of a breakdown sitting right beside them.

With Kenny gone everyone just kind of ends up hovering around, unsure of what to do. Butters sitting on the sofa staring down blankly at his lap, and Wendy seated next to him, a solid and warm presence ready to jump in to help if he needed it. Stan, after hovering around the two of them a bit awkwardly, finally takes a seat in the nearby armchair, and Bebe chooses to remain standing. Sitting in times like these always made her feel restless.

Kenny returns with the glass of water a few moments later, and he hands it to Butters before hopping onto the armrest of the sofa. Butters nods his thanks, takes a small sip of it, and then stares down into it as he clutches the glass with both hands.

Wendy watches Butters.

Kenny frowns down at his phone.

Stan’s gaze flicks from the remote to the TV.

Bebe feels a bit like screaming. Maybe the fallout afterwards would be better than whatever horrible torture _this_ was.

“...Butters, did you maybe want to try to tell us what happened?”

It’s Wendy who finally voices the question, and Bebe is a little tempted to go over and kiss her. It’d be inappropriate considering the circumstances, but completely worth it.

But then Butters just shakes his head. Small and barely noticeable, before he mutters, “You fellas won’t believe me.”

Wendy leans a bit closer to him, tilting her head a bit in an attempt to catch his still downcast gaze. Laying a hand on his shoulder, she softly asks, “Now what makes you say that?”

“Kyle didn’t.”

She exhales through her nose and her lip quirks into a tight-lipped smile. “Well,” she says after a beat, “Kyle’s not here now. It’s just us. We’ll listen.”

Lifting his head, Butters finally meets her eyes. And although his smile is shaky and a poor imitation of its usual self, it’s a relief to see some semblance of one back on his face again. She watches as Wendy squeezes his shoulder in a reassuring gesture, and Butters takes a deep breath, as if preparing himself.

Then, he shakily begins recounting the tale.

He tells them about the uneasy feeling he’d gotten when he and Eric had first gotten to the lab. Tells them about the state of things inside and the chilling phone call that led Eric to the basement. Of how those were the last moments he’d seen him alive. He tells of the sobbing woman and describes the smell of decay that accompanied the opening door.

And then, he tells them about what he had found in that basement.

Two mutilated corpses.

A message scrawled in blood.

The woman that had been trailing him ever since.

By the time he finishes, Bebe can hardly breathe.

She doesn’t want to believe it, doesn't know if she _can_ believe it. Some things just weren’t allowed to exist. Weren’t _allowed_ to be possible. Yet there’s a part of her that recalls the shadow of the woman she had viewed across the street, and the eyes she’d been feeling on her back ever since, and she can’t help but wonder if it could be true. If everything Butters said...wasn’t just some delusion his mind had made up to cope with the murder of his friend.

Bebe locks eyes with Wendy, then Stan, then Kenny. Not a single one of them seeming to know what to think or how to proceed. Whether they believed it or not, it was clear Butters believed it, and they couldn’t exactly discredit something so easily after promising to listen. But they couldn’t say it was true either. Somehow, that seemed worse.

It’s Kenny who ends up being the first to warily break the silence. “Could you maybe draw her?”

Butters blinks, seems to think about it, and then gives a slight nod.

“Well I ain’t all that good at drawin’, not like you are, but I could try.”

“Okay, just let me get- _shit_ ,” Kenny curses as if just remembering something, and turns back around from where he’d been about to make his exit. His gaze flicks to Wendy and he sighs. “I left my stuff at your place. Well, I’m sure Kyle has something, just give me a second to look.”

“I’ll come with you,” Bebe says quickly, even before Stan can offer like she can tell he’d been about to do. She was really starting to loathe just standing around, and as if understanding, Stan gives her a nod and settles back into his seat. Giving him a grateful smile, she then follows after Kenny.

He leads her past several closed doors, until he reaches one at the end of the hall. Opening it reveals the inside of what appears to be a study, with a large bookcase against the far wall and a desk sitting in the middle riddled with different papers. Well, it looked as if she’d found where Kyle spent most of his time whenever he found himself home. Because there were more things that screamed ‘Kyle’ in this small space, then there had been in the entirety of his living room. From the neatly stacked piles of folders, to the collection of sticky notes he had posted up on a bulletin board alongside a few other documents, all covered in his small yet neat script. She makes her way over to his desk, and her attention is immediately drawn to a photo of the six of them from the summer going into college.

She’d been the one who’d taken that picture. Huh, she must have sent it to him because it was definitely her master selfie work, somehow managing to squeeze all five of her friends into the frame with her. Wendy with her cheek pressed against hers in the front, with Butters smiling widely on her other side. Then there was Stan, Kyle and Kenny in the back, Kenny’s arm wrapped around both of their shoulders despite his smaller size and tugging them in closer, signature lopsided grin in place. Kyle’s lips quirked up in amusement, and Stan’s eyes widened in surprise as if he’d just been caught off guard by Kenny suddenly yanking him forward.

It was a good picture.

Bebe can’t help but smile at it. They all looked so much younger, straight out of high school and ready to take on the world. She’d have to take another one like it one of these days. Once they were all back together again, for real this time. Cafe drama and crime scene tragedy's not included.

She looks up and finds Kenny over at the bookshelf at the other side of the room. Walking over to him, she watches as he finishes flipping through the notebook he’d been holding, puts it back onto the shelf, and then takes another one. Upon closer inspection, the entire lower shelf of Kyle’s bookshelf appeared to be nothing _but_ notebooks.

“Can’t we just take any one of them?” She asks him.

“Well, we could technically,” he says continuing to flip through the pages, only sparing her a brief arch of his brow. An action she’s almost positive he’d picked up from Kyle at some point. “But remember this is Kyle we’re talking about. Half of these are probably used for his cases and painstakingly organized, so I don’t think he’d appreciate having Butters doodling all over one of the pages,” he pauses and huffs out a small laugh, “...as funny as that would be.”

“I’ve seen you doodle on Kyle’s stuff all the time.”

He pauses, hand freezing mid-page-flip.

“That...that’s different,” he says after a moment, tone a bit too quiet.

“Uh huh.”

He doesn’t comment any further, only flips through the rest of the pages a tinge faster than he had previously, before pushing the notebook back onto the shelf. He goes to grab for another one when he pauses once more, hand stilling against some book’s binding. Then, with an almost delicate amount of care, he slowly removes an old looking book from the shelf.

She watches as he runs his hands over it as if it’s familiar, and then his lips quirk into one of the softest smiles Bebe has ever seen from him. “I can’t believe that dumbass actually kept this,” he murmurs, almost to himself, flipping it open to the first page.

“What’s that, Kenny?”

“My old sketchbook from high school,” he tells her, tone still just as soft. “I got rid of it years ago, threw it in the trash after I got denied that stupid scholarship. Kyle must have taken it out after I left.”

She looks over his shoulder at the sketchbook as he slowly flips through the pages. There are sketches of their old classrooms and, in typical teenage Kenny fashion, of large breasted women. Some are of landscapes, Stark’s Pond and a view of what was likely from the rooftop of Kenny’s childhood home.

And then there are the pictures of them.

A sketch of Bebe herself that she faintly remembers Kenny drawing in class one day. One of Wendy at one of her debate matches, her fingers digging into the sides of the podium. And one with Butters petting a cat on a park bench. Then there are a few of Kyle, Kenny managing to catch the proud slope of his shoulders in some, and something else in a few others. Another side of Kyle that Bebe didn’t think she’d ever really seen, or hadn’t paid enough attention to notice. The way he’d gaze down in fierce concentration at his textbook, or the downcast- almost _lonely_ look he exhibited, likely when he thought no one was looking.

But it’s none of those that really surprises her. They were all things that she’d expected to see in Kenny’s old sketchbook. Instead it’s the drawings of _Stan_ that throw her off. Because for every drawing there was of her, or Wendy, or _Kyle_ , there was another one for Stan.

By the third sketch of a sweaty Stan in his old football uniform, Bebe turns to arch an eyebrow at him. Kenny catches her eye and laughs. “I used to think Stan was hot as shit,” he explains. “He totally had that whole ‘star quarterback’ thing going for him.”

And Bebe finds that she’s honestly surprised at this new bit of information. Some _observant_ gossip she was apparently. How had she never known this? Maybe Stan’s case wasn’t as hopeless as she had thought.

“Well, what about now?”

At her question, Kenny gives her an odd look. “Huh?”

“You still into him?”

“Who, Stan?” His nose curls up a bit as if surprised she’d even suggest it, before shaking his head. “No, no I haven’t been for a long time.”

Well, she’d figured as much. Still, she couldn’t help her heart from giving a pang of empathy for Stan’s own. Was there ever a point in time where they could have been together? If Stan had confessed in high school like he should have, would things be different?

Guess they’d never know now.

“What changed?” She asks softly.

Kenny shrugs. “Nothing? Everything?” He huffs out a small laugh and shakes his head. “I don’t know. You guys all went off to college and I guess I grew up. We all did. And things that once seemed important...didn’t really matter anymore.”

“Wow Kenny, that was actually like... _profound_.”

She was kind of proud, if she was being honest. It wasn’t often she saw this side of Kenny, the side that didn’t just make a joke out of everything.

He gives her his signature lopsided grin, and in an instant all prior seriousness fades. “I have my moments.”

Rolling her eyes she looks back towards the sketchbook as he flips through the last couple pages. “You know,” she starts out gently, feeling as if she owed him a bit of seriousness in return. “These are all really good, Ken. I’m really glad you didn’t end up giving up on it.”

He bumps her shoulder. “Yeah well, I had a lot of supportive people around.”

“You thinking of trying to get into art school again? Now that you don’t have to worry about keeping a million jobs?”

His lips curve into a smirk.

“I’ll have you know that my record total was six at once, thanks. And well, I don’t know,” he says with another nonchalant shrug, “I’m not sure if it’ll really be worth it. Like yeah I’m not making all that much, but Kevin and Karen are doin’ alright, and I’m doing pretty well slumming it.”

She doesn’t believe it for a second. Kenny McCormick never settled for _slumming_ it, not if he felt like he had another option. Or well, without a good enough reason.

Bebe crosses her arms.

“Uh huh. Just admit it.”

Sparing her a flat look, Kenny only quips, “I admit to nothing unless directly questioned. I know my rights.”

“Play coy all you want, I know you just want an excuse to keep hanging around Kyle.”

At that, his expression cracks and he shoots her a half amused, half betrayed look.

“Low blow, Bebe.” He comments. But then his expression falls slightly, grows a bit more melancholy. More tired. “And it’s not like that, I just...worry about him.”

Now _that_ she believed. No explanation needed.

Her smile immediately softens. “Yeah, I know you do,” she tells him, immediately earning a small smile. Her gaze then flicks back down to the sketchbook still held in his hands. “And it was pretty nice of him to save this for you.”

It was strangely... _sentimental_. Something she wouldn’t expect from someone like Kyle. Then again, Kenny had always kinda been the exception for him.

“Oh, well I for one am totally going to give him shit for this later,” is Kenny’s immediate answer, obviously having had enough of all the mushy feeling crap for one day. He flicks through the last few pages in rapid succession before shutting the book and turning to fully face her. “There’s also a few blank pages left in this thing. So come on, we should probably get back to the others.”

Right, back to the real world. Couldn’t stay here trying to pretend it was just a normal night forever.

After a brief nod of agreement, Bebe follows Kenny back through the hallway until they once again regroup with the others, all in the same exact places as they had left them. Only this time Bebe leans against the back of the sofa as opposed to her prior position with her back to the door. A little change in scenery never hurt anyone, after all.

Kenny hands the notebook over to Butters; although, the blond only holds it in his hands for a fraction of a second before a faint shake of his head is all the warning they get before he’s pushing it back into Kenny’s hands.

“I ain’t an artist Kenny,” he says softly in way of explanation. “How about I go and describe her for ya, and you draw?”

Kenny nods. “Okay, that’ll work.” He then plops down onto the floor in front of Butters, turns the sketchbook to a blank page and then waits. They all do. Butters had gone over the basics earlier, explaining how she seemed to be dead, yet _wasn’t_. A lot was left to the imagination as he skipped the details, but now Bebe can’t help but feel a kind of morbid curiosity at what might come out of the normally cheerful and naive blond’s mouth. And he sure doesn’t disappoint, because Butters describes everything in horrifying detail. Right down to her sunken in eyes and the patches of skin peeling away to reveal bone and muscle.

Kenny doesn’t say a word as he carefully draws lines across the page and shades, offering no input besides the occasional nod as he focuses on his work. It’s only when he’s done that he stares down at the sketch that he’d been so carefully drawing with a mix between disgust and horror. As if he’d been taking it in objectively until that very moment, and suddenly he saw it for what it was.

“...Is this who you saw?” He asks a bit warily, a moment before he turns his sketchbook and finally presents his drawing.

Bebe suddenly can’t breathe.

It was worse than anything her imagination could conjure up on its own. A study in how pencil on paper could become something so unimaginably grotesque that she wished she could look away. She wanted to, but she couldn’t. It was as if she was stuck looking at every gaping wound and at the malice in her too wide smile, brain replacing shaded grayscale with vivid and oozing red.

That _thing_ couldn’t exist.

“Yeah…” Butters says quietly. “That’s her.”

Their gazes flick to one another. The silence once again a heavy and real presence between them. From the sketchbook, the thing’s eyes feel more piercing and alive than they have a right to. She can almost feel them on her, just like before when-

Kenny’s phone goes off.

The ringtone blares loudly and Bebe nearly jumps out of her skin, they all do.

Kenny fumbles with the device for a second before he answers it.

“Hello?” He pauses. “Oh hey, Kyle,” He exhales a shaky laugh, and Bebe releases a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. “You scared me, dude. What’s up?” There’s another pause, and then his lips quirk into a smile. “Aw, I knew you cared. I’m fine, and before you ask everyone else is okay too. Well, okay as we can be...here, I’ll just put you on speaker.”

“Hey guys,” immediately comes Kyle’s much too calm voice as soon as Kenny holds his phone up, “having fun without me?”

“Oh this whole night’s just been a _blast_ , Kyle.” Bebe barks back, heart still pounding. “Right in the top ten I’ve ever had.”

He chuckles. “I’m sure. So, what’s going on? Besides the obvious, of course.”

And _of course_ , he still sounds no different than normal. Why wouldn’t he? What a complete _asshole_. He’d been at that creepy lab for _how long_ now? Must be nice to be immune to whatever the hell was going on.

She kind of wants to punch him.

So luckily, Wendy’s the one who takes the initiative and answers his question. 

“Um well, Butters told us what happened and we just had Kenny sketch a picture of the woman he saw.”

And it’s only then that they get a reaction. A pause followed by a tone piqued with interest. She can practically picture him straightening at the other end of the line, leaning forward and listening carefully so he doesn’t miss a word.

“...You’ve got a sketch?”

“Yeah,” Kenny replies after sharing a brief look with Wendy. “But it’s… better if you see for yourself. Did you just want me to send it to you?”

Kyle gives another pause, as if considering. “Where are you right now?”

“Uh, your place actually,” says Kenny. “I figured-“

“No, no. That’s fine. I’d actually prefer it if you stay there.” There’s a exhale of breath, a beat in time where he seems to recollect himself. Then, he continues. “Listen, I’m just leaving the crime scene now, and my house is on the way to the station. I’ll swing by.”

“Okay, yeah,” Kenny replies a little too quickly. “Sounds good.”

“I’ll see you in a few.”

And with that, he hangs up.

Kenny stares at his phone for several seconds after, but when he looks up she notices he doesn’t look quite as lost as he had before when they’d all been fumbling around for a course of action. And it’s no small relief seeing him look more like his usual self, because _one_ of them had to take the lead in all this, and it was _not_ going to be Bebe. Not if she could help it. Freaky monster ghosts were _so_ not her thing.

“Alright, so I’m going to go get some blankets and things from the other room,” Kenny voices, jumping to his feet. And although he doesn’t mention that they’re for Butters’ benefit, the poor guy still shaking slightly on the sofa, he looks at him as he says it. “I’ll be right back.”

And with that, he vanishes around the corner into the hallway.

With him gone, Stan gives a small scoff. “You’d think he lives here,” he mutters.

Bebe doesn’t have the energy to respond, but Wendy at least gives him a sharp look for his comment. Now wasn’t exactly the time for that old argument.

It doesn’t take long for Kenny to return with a couple blankets held in his arms. And in the small bit of time it takes to get Butters situated with one of them, there’s the telltale sound of a car pulling into the driveway.

Kenny’s the one who answers the door, bouncing to his feet and hurrying over and opening it likely before Kyle could even get his key out. They exchange a few words that Bebe can’t quite catch, and then the two of them are walking into the living room.

Looking at Kyle, a pang of pity hits her chest. He looks even more exhausted than he did when they left him only a little over two hours earlier. His shoulders are slumped in an uncharacteristic way, and the shadows under his eyes seem to have darkened. Still, much in the way he had sounded on the phone, his voice is as strong and steady as ever when he speaks to them.

“I can only stay for a bit,” he tells them. “I have to head back to the station. What is it you wanted to show me?”

But before anyone can answer everyone’s attention is snagged by the distinct rattling of keys, and the next second Stan is rising to his feet. Kyle gives him a strange look, one that likely mirrored her own. Just what was that boy doing?

“Wait, Stan, you’re leaving?” Kyle asks, receiving nothing more than a faint shrug in response. Stan doesn’t even look at him, pretending to fiddle around with the keys now in his hand.

“Yeah, I was just waiting for you to get here.”

“But you know I can’t stay-“

“Uh huh,” Stan cuts him off, tone abnormally cold. “I heard you dude. But I’ve got a dog, remember? I can’t exactly leave her alone all night.”

Stan finally looks at him then, and to Kyle’s credit he keeps his gaze passive even though Stan’s eyes clearly display a challenge. A role reversal if she’d ever seen one, Kyle was usually the instigator in these sorts of things. Was hotheaded like that, always had been. Then again, even he must have known that now was no time for a fight.

“Are you coming back?”

“No,” Stan’s gaze narrows further. “Why, is that a problem?”

“Well, it might be safer-“

“I’m a _cop_ , Kyle,” he snaps. “Just because I’m not a _detective_ doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t need you to lecture me on safety.”

All eyes in the room immediately flick to Kyle, no one daring to get in the middle of an argument between him and Stan yet terrified of what one could mean in a time like this. Stan and Kyle’s relationship had certainly taken a turn for the worse in the past few years, but even when in the worst of moods Stan was only ever short with Kyle, at least from what she’d seen. Because the one thing about Stan was that he was never one to face his problems head on, not like Kyle did. There were passive aggressive comments thrown Kyle’s way every so often, sure. But outright aggression? It just wasn’t Stan’s way of dealing with things.

But everyone had a breaking point. And the tenseness of the night and the situation in general couldn’t have been helping anything. And of course, what happened to all that bottled up anger and bitterness Stan was carrying when he finally hit that breaking point?

Inevitable explosion.

Kenny must have been along the same line of thinking, because out of the corner of her eye she spots him step a bit closer to Kyle, as if preparing to stop a fight. But it turns out to be an unnecessary action, because all Kyle does is let out a heavy sigh and rub at the side of his head as if he’s starting to get a migraine.

“You know what, just go,” he tells him.

“Thank. You.”

Then, with one final sharp look towards Kyle, Stan brushes past them to leave and Bebe can’t help but flinch when he closes the door behind him a little rougher than necessary.

With the room pitched in an awkward silence following Stan’s exit, Kyle takes a deep breath and shakes his head slightly. When he looks back up at them it’s as if nothing had happened, and Bebe once again can’t help but be impressed at his ability to keep himself together. It couldn’t be easy.

“So, the sketch?” He asks.

Kenny hands it to him silently, and Kyle takes it and inspects it without any sign of horror. Brows furrowing a bit, but managing to look as if he was viewing any ordinary photo. After a moment, he looks up at Butters.

“This is who you saw?”

Butters gives a small nod. “Yeah.”

Kyle frowns then, and lowers his gaze back down towards the drawing.

“Do you...recognize her?” Kenny asks a bit hesitantly. And whether that hesitance was because he didn’t want to interrupt Kyle’s thoughts or because he thought it was a stupid question she really couldn’t be sure. But either way, Kyle gives a slow shake of his head in response.

“No, I’ve never seen her before.”

Kenny lays a hand on his arm then. The action alone enough to get Kyle to immediately lift his gaze away from the paper to meet Kenny’s. “There is...something else,” Kenny admits slowly. “A few things actually.”

It’s then that Kenny quickly recounts everything Butters had told him, giving Kyle the condensed version as if knowing exactly what the detective would find important. Kyle listens intently and without interruption, at least for a while. It’s only when Kenny reaches the part about Mephesto that Kyle gives him an odd look and cuts in.

“You do realize that Mephesto died a few years ago, right? Some of his family even came down for the funeral. He’s buried over at the town cemetery.”

Wait... _what_?

But just as Bebe digests that information and begins to wonder of what Butters has seen really had been some sort of fabrication, Butters himself finally speaks.

“...No that can’t be. I _saw_ him.” He goes to stand but Wendy holds him back. But the look in his eyes is the same as it had been when he’d been pleading with Kyle at the lab, and Bebe knows that Butters at least wasn’t about to start questioning the validity of what he’d seen.

Yet, despite Butters’ adamance, Kyle shakes his head, looking wholly unconvinced. “Look, maybe it was just a hallucination. Or a delusion. They’re perfectly common, especially when you’ve been under a lot of stress.”

“I _saw_ him, Kyle.”

Just when it looks like Kyle is about to offer another rebuttal, Kenny speaks up. “How did he die?”

Kyle’s lips part in answer before he closes them on whatever words were about to form. He frowns. “It’s not important.”

“ _Kyle_.”

It’s then that Kyle sighs. He might have been stubborn, but that stubbornness was no match for a small blond in an orange jacket. “He was murdered,” he admits and instantly looks uncomfortable. “They wanted to keep the truth under wraps so the people wouldn’t freak out over nothing.”

A chill goes down Bebe’s spine at the words. Okay, what the fuck. Were the police even allowed to do stuff like that?

“Someone was _murdered_ , Ky,” Kenny pushes. “I’d hardly call that nothing.”

“It was out of my control. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you, so try not to make a big deal of it, okay?”

And Bebe knows a topic dismissal when she sees one, especially with the way Kyle immediately looks at Butters a bit uneasily.

He was hiding something. There was something he wasn’t telling them.

Clearly sharing her thoughts, Kenny wastes no time grabbing Kyle’s wrist and tugging him into the kitchen. Bebe shares a glance with Wendy and nods, leaving her to stay with Butters and following after the two of them to see what was going on.

She hovers by the kitchen door, a spot that she could see them yet they wouldn’t be able to see her. It was her safest bet. If Kyle was that hesitant, there was no guarantee he would tell everything if he knew she was listening.

“Okay, now talk to me,” Kenny says to him, keeping his voice low. “Did you ever find out who did it?”

“That’s the thing,” Kyle says leaning in a bit closer to Kenny so Bebe has to strain to hear. “There was no evidence, _nothing_ to go off of. Usually there’s a slip-up somewhere, some strand of hair or even tire tracks, but the place was clean. No sign of a struggle, hell despite the condition of the body even the blood was contained to the ground directly beneath it. It was as if he’d been killed somewhere else and then just... _dumped_ there.”

“Did you consider that as a possibility?”

“Well, yeah, of course I did. But Kenny, I’m not talking about a shooting here. Someone treated that man like he was a slab of meat they could just cut open. And the way everything... _fell_ , it would have been impossible to imitate that after transport.” Kyle’s voice begins to grow a bit louder as he goes on, rambling off his thoughts as he so often liked to do. “So, of course, the next logical explanation would be that it was done post-mortem, but then _why_? Why would you kill someone and then move them someplace out in the open right where they could be found, and _then_ pin them to a wall and butcher them? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Maybe they wanted to make a display of it?” Kenny offers, but Kyle shakes his head.

“Enough to risk being seen? Anyone driving by could see that lab from the ground, it’s not exactly hidden. It’s how the police were notified about it so fast despite the lab being vacant.”

Silence stretches between them for a few breaths as Kenny seems to process everything. There’s a cold feeling that creeps down Bebe’s back, even if she attempts to not think too hard about the truth. She doesn’t want it to be true, wishes it could be some kind of joke. Mephesto had _actually_ been killed in the same way Butters described, just years earlier?

What the hell was going on?

“Was there anything else you found?” Kenny finally asks him.

Kyle hesitates.

“Ky, you’ve already said this much. I’m not going to tell anybody.”

“I know, it’s just…” He trails off and gazes off to the side, still seeming torn on whether he should voice it. But then he looks back to Kenny and releases a sigh that’s half tired, half defeated. “There was writing above the body when we found it.”

Bebe’s blood runs cold.

“Cartman,” Kenny says shortly, that single word bridging the gap as to why Kyle had been so hesitant. Instantly knowing exactly what he was thinking.

Kyle only nods.

Kenny continues. “So, you think they’re related,” he assumes, his words more of a fact he wants to clarify then a question.

“Same brutality, same signature, same location,” Kyle gives a grim smile. “I think we have a likely match.”

“Ky, if this is some kind of serial killer-”

“I _know_.” Kyle quickly cuts off Kenny’s half hushed and worried words. Then his shoulders slump and he drops his head to rest the heel of his palm against his temple. Kenny moves closer, but before he can say or do anything, Kyle continues. “It’s good you brought everyone here. Just have everyone stay here tonight and then tomorrow morning bring Butters over to the station. Try not to leave him alone for a while, and Kenny…” he drops his hand and looks up at him, “... _please_ stay safe.”

The last of his words are paired with his hand out reaching towards Kenny, only to have it fall back to his side as if he thinks better of it. But Bebe’s not the only one who noticed, and Kenny is clearly having none of that.

Kenny takes his hand.

“I will,” he says, voice soft enough that Bebe can barely make out the words. Kyle looks from their connected hands to Kenny’s face and gives him a small smile, the first real one she had seen from him all night. “Have you eaten anything?”

“Kenny, that’s not-”

“Nope,” he cuts off his argument with a small grin of his own, releasing Kyle’s hand so he can cross his arms. Likely to show that he’s trying to be serious. “No avoiding the question. And don’t you even dare lie.”

Kyle releases a long breath like he‘d really rather not answer, but Kenny had that stern caretaker stance, the one that proved how he was able to take care of his siblings when their parents weren’t around. And Kyle, to his credit, knows a losing battle when he sees one. “This morning I-”

“Yeah, no,” Kenny doesn’t even let him finish. “You’re eating something. I’m not letting you leave until you do.”

“I swear you’re worse than me sometimes,” he says, clear amusement in both expression and tone.

“Only because your stubborn-ass is determined to take care of everyone but yourself. So, I’ve decided to play housewife,” Kenny ends with a very prominent smirk, to which Kyle rolls his eyes.

“You’re a menace.”

“You just keep telling yourself that, _Sugarmuffin_.”

Kyle snorts, but there’s a degree of fondness in the way he looks at Kenny that’s unmistakable. You’d have to practically be _blind_ to miss it.

_Oh, just kiss already._

It’s with that thought that Bebe finally turns away from them with a roll of her eyes. She loved her boys, really she did, but they could be insufferable sometimes.

She makes her way back to the living room. Wendy looks up from her phone as she approaches and gives her a small tired smile. Beside her, Butters appears to be sleeping, head the only part of his body visible from under the blanket. For his sake, Bebe makes sure to keep her voice low when she speaks.

“Hey stranger,” Bebe says taking a seat next to Wendy. “How’s Butters?”

Her fiance releases a small huff and glances at the resting blond on the other side of her. “Well, I finally got him to sleep. Other than that,” she shrugs, “we’ll just have to see.”

The poor girl looked exhausted. Maybe not as drastically as Kyle did, but it was clear that all of this was starting to take a toll on her. Wendy always seemed to be full of energy, and it was a little startling to see her look so out of it.

“You doing okay, sweetie?” Bebe gently prods.

“Yeah, it’s just been a long night is all.” She leans slightly into Bebe, resting some of her weight on her, before her lips tilt into a small grin. “Maybe I should have listened to you about the bar, a little bit of alcohol couldn’t have hurt.”

Bebe can’t stop the laugh from bubbling up her throat. And with it the air between them lightens. Not fully, but enough to not feel so suffocating. “Oh the drunken running to the crime scene would have been _delightful_ ,” Bebe giggles, and it’s not long before Wendy is joining her.

“I’ve seen you run in heels, I’m sure you could have managed it.”

“And I’ve seen you trip over your own feet after only a few drinks,” Bebe points out will no small amount of amusement. “So, I don’t think I would have fared so well considering I’d be carrying your ass.”

Wendy’s grin turns teasing and she leans a little more heavily into her side, going as far as resting her head on her shoulder and batting her eyelashes. The perfect imitation of coy. Bebe can’t help but be a little proud. “Aww, you would have carried me?” She coos. "That’s sweet.”

“Actually, on second thought, I would have ditched your drunk-ass back with Stan.”

Wendy laughs, straightening and jabbing Bebe’s side with her elbow. “I’m glad I know where we stand.” Bebe nudges her back and then the two fall into silence. A silence that stretches until Wendy casts a quiet glance towards the kitchen and a small frown once again crosses her face. “So,” she says, turning to Bebe, “You overhear anything interesting with the boys?”

Bebe scoffs, choosing to ignore the more serious matters for the moment. “You mean other than them being disgustingly domestic with each other, even though they refuse to man the fuck up and date already?”

“That bad?” Wendy asks with a grimace, and Bebe rolls her eyes.

“Oh _please_ be careful, _snookums_ , I would just _die_ without your divine ass.”

At her high-pitched mockery, Wendy slaps her arm. “They did not!” Yet despite her words she’s barely concealing her laughter and Bebe’s soon joining in with her own quiet giggles.

“They might as well have!” She says through her laughter, tone filled with feigned anger. “I swear I’m going to lock those two in a broom closet one of these days.”

“You better not,” chides Wendy, giving her arm another sharp nudge. “They’re big boys, let them sort this out themselves.”

“Wendy, I’m _suffering_.”

But Wendy just fixes her with a disapproving stare. “Don’t be such a big baby,” she tells her. But then she gets that serious look again. The one Bebe _really_ didn’t want to see. “Now, what did you overhear?”

And it looked like the fun was officially over. On to Important things…and here she was trying not to think about those. She could really only handle so much in one night.

Bebe’s grin falls, and she gives a large exhale. “Cartman might have been killed by the same person who killed Mephesto,” she says, getting straight to the point. No use in delaying it now, after all.

Wendy doesn’t say anything at first, and if she’s surprised she doesn’t even show it. Instead her brow just furrows a bit until she finally asks, “Why does Kyle think that?”

Bebe summarizes it the best she can.

“They were both found at the lab, both were cut open, and both had the same writing Butters was talking about written above the body.”

“So...it’s likely a serial killer,” Wendy quickly surmises like the genius she is, and Bebe nods.

“That’s what Kyle said.”

“A serial killer who probably knows Butters has seen their identity,” she mutters, before raking a hand through her hair with a sigh. “Great. Exactly what we need.”

It’s then that Bebe chances a glance at Butters. In all honesty, she’d almost forgotten he was there. But despite her and Wendy’s conversation he hadn’t awoken; although, there was a tense line to his brow as if even in sleep he was stressed about something. “You think we should tell him?” Bebe finds herself asking, but out of the corner of her eye she sees Wendy shake her head.

“I think it’s better if we don’t,” she tells her. “At least until things calm down. He’s already traumatized as it is, we’ll just have to keep an eye on him for a while.”

It made sense. Bebe could agree with that, even if it wasn’t necessarily the _right_ thing to do, it was the kinder one. Butters shouldn’t have to worry about anything else, and they’d be around if anyone tried to get to him.

“Guess it’s a good thing we’re both off from work tomorrow. Especially since Kyle wants us to stay here for the night.”

“Hm, yeah that’s probably for the best,” Wendy agrees. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving Butters alone right now anyway. They still want his statement?”

“We’re taking him tomorrow apparently.”

“Well, that should be interesting.” Wendy gives her a tight-lipped smile. “Didn’t think I’d be spending my Saturday in a police station.”

And although the timing isn’t the best, Bebe can’t stop her lips from quirking into a faint smirk. “And to think, I didn’t even bring my uniform,” she smarms, earning an instant elbow in her side.

“Oh, _shut it_.”

But some of the seriousness breaks once again, and Bebe sees a hint of a smile tugging on Wendy’s lips. However, that quickly fades as Butters quiet whimpers fill in the silence, and both their eyes dart to him in concern. But then they fade, the blond still not waking up and they unanimously decide to leave him be. It was probably just a nightmare. Bebe wouldn’t be surprised, especially after all that happened to him in the past night.

“You think he’s going to be okay?” She voices to Wendy. Yet, her fiance’s answer isn’t immediate, and she actually seems a little hesitant to answer. Seems a little unsure. It’s a moment of weakness that she’d probably never show anyone else, one that carries into her voice as she finally admits, “I...I don’t know. I don’t even know what to think about anything anymore.”

Bebe doesn’t have to ask what she means, and she doesn’t have to ask what sparks her sudden mood change after she’d seemed to be holding herself together only moments before. Because there’s a sudden heaviness in the room, a quiet air of foreboding that makes its appearance as quickly and unexpectedly as Butter's sudden whimpers. Bebe can’t explain it, couldn’t if she tried, but she suddenly feels different. Wrong. On edge.

It’s just like...

She swallows. “Wends…” she starts slowly, “did you feel anything _weird_ , at the lab?”

But Wendy just laughs. Forced and just a pitch too loud. “What, you too?” She asks with tight smile, although Bebe doesn’t miss the way her eyes flick around the room uneasily. “I wouldn’t think too hard about what Butters was saying, Bebe. The lab was pretty creepy, sure, but I think I’m more concerned with the living at the moment. Not apparitions.”

Overhead the light flickers.

And suddenly Butters shoots up with a startled gasp, eyes wide.

Bebe’s heart pounds in her chest, frozen with something that might be fear. But it’s Wendy who immediately springs into action.

“Oh, Butters!” She turns to him and all traces of nerves fade as she resumes her role as caretaker. “Don’t worry, it was just a nightmare, it’s okay,” she soothes. “Everything’s okay.”

But everything didn’t feel okay.

No, it felt _wrong_.

Something wasn’t right. And whatever it was she wasn’t the only one to feel it.

Because Butters wasn’t looking at Wendy. And what she saw in his eyes was stronger and more potent than she’d ever seen before tonight. The very same thing she’d seen from him on the streets only earlier. Something she’d thought had lessened now that the worst was over, only to be strictly proven otherwise.

 _Terror_.

A gust of cool air brushes against her spine and she shivers.

Slowly, Bebe follows Butters gaze to the window.

The _open_ window.

It’s only open by a small amount, just enough to let the slightest amount of air in. But everything was supposed to be shut, wasn’t it? That was all part of the security system, no one would have...

Without thinking, Bebe slowly gets to her feet and approaches the window to shut it. She’s in the middle of reaching for the damn thing when she notices it.

Notices _her_.

Bebe’s blood runs cold and she freezes up completely.

She watches them from the trees. A form of a woman, one she’d mistake for a twisted product of her imagination if she hadn’t seen that same form on the street earlier. A shadow in the dead of night, with a curved posture and an unnatural stance as if she couldn’t hold herself up properly. Everything else about her was shrouded in shadow...all except her eyes.

They stare at her, gleaming unnaturally through the darkness.

Waiting. Watching. _Wanting_ -

Bebe slams the window shut and closes the blinds.

It’s not until she turns around that she realizes she’s shaking. Tremors wracking her from head to toe as her heart pounds ferociously in her chest and her breath comes in shallow gasps. Her gaze immediately goes to Butters, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead he just stares down at the floor, expressionless and motionless except for the small tremble that would travel through him every so often.

Did he know?

Wendy gazes at her in concern. “Bebe?”

Bebe stares at her. Wendy hadn't noticed. Should she tell her?

But tell her what exactly? _Humans don’t have glowing eyes, Bebe._

But then...could that really have been a ghost?

“I thought I saw something,” is what she finally vaguely answers, unsure of what to think through her rattled nerves and the million impossibilities running through her head.

“Was it the woman?” Wendy pushes, obviously not blind to Bebe’s unhinged state. “Should we tell Kyle?”

... _Should_ they tell Kyle?

Kyle was tired enough as it was, and Stan hadn’t seen the woman earlier. Maybe it was just...stress? Kyle did say something earlier about stress causing delusions, and she was under an _awful_ lot of stress today. Tentatively, summoning all her courage, she peeks back through the curtains.

No one was there.

“No, no. It was probably just a trick of the light,” she says, voice shaky. “I don’t see her anymore. I think I just need some sleep.”

Wendy eyes her with clear concern, but Bebe avoids her gaze. She was _tired_. Tired of all this shit and she just wanted to lie down and forget about ghosts and murders and whatever the hell else was going on. She really couldn’t deal with anything else right now.

As if sensing her thoughts, Wendy doesn't push for once and eventually agrees with her.

“I think some sleep sounds good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp I meant to get this out earlier but uh I also wasn't intending this to be a near 10000 word chapter xD But eh, it's still technically Halloween here, sooo I call this a success?  
> Thanks for reading! And as always, comments give me life and are always appreciated!<3


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